...the more they stay the same.
The more I read history, the less I believe the whole thing about the world getting worse and worse as time goes on.
Take this 1215 book I'm reading. Here's a few juicy quotes that sound awfully modern to me:
"The rich and powerful spent far more money on building and decorating houses to live in than on churches to pray in. It is just that the churches survive while their houses do not."
"Probably a majority of the population resented having to pay tithes.... another cause for resentment: the Church's rule against working on Sundays and holy days."
One man's tirade against Sabbath law went thus:
"You clerics have so much time on your hands that you meddle with what's none of your business. You lot grow fat and soft with idleness, you don't have areal job, your life is just a game or a play. You clerics with your everlating useless dirges despise us, though we are the ones who do all the real work. And then you go and bring in some [feast] or other to justify your idleness and to try to stop me doing the job that I need to stay alive..."
Of course, the clerical author reporting this tirade claims the guy fell over dead after he got through...
After fiery guest revival preachers came through town, touting the commands to rest on the Sabbath, people usually "returned to their old ways, holding Sunday markets just as before" (pgs 202-206).
No comments:
Post a Comment